The Darker Days of Me and Him
by Ivory Novelist
Summary: A oneshot angst piece. Todd's POV. No Slash. Please RR.


Disclaimer: _Dead Poets Society_ belongs to Peter Weir and the brilliant writer who wrote it.  
  
Lyrics to _The Darker Days of Me and Him_ belongs to PJ Harvey.  
  
A/N: Oh, I am so evil. Please R/R. This is from Todd's POV.  
  
Even though he calls Neil 'baby' sometimes, **this isn't slash**. In fact, girls calls their friends that sometimes, without being gay, so I don't see why straight guys from 1959 who were best friends can't do so as well.

----------------------------------

The Darker Days of Me and Him  
It seems so long ago. He makes me feel old. My words are brooding and tired and I hate the way they make me sound so much older than I am. I hate needing all of his things and feeling worn out. I hate sleep when it drowns me in his dreams and slices me open with things that were and things that never will be. I hate the empty house and the room that used to be ours with the bed that used to be his, now filled with some other boy's body. I hate the glass that made me bleed and cut into my hands, the shards of a shattered picture frame that his eyes watched me through. I hate the poetry I write to heal my soul that only ends up being for him because I'm too weak to get over him. He killed himself and it seems so long ago. He makes me feel so old, but when he died, I felt too young to live.  
  
_Promises, promises  
  
I'm feeling burned  
  
You taught me a lesson  
  
I didn't want to learn  
_  
I needed to keep everything I could find. I needed to drown in his coat, needed it to remind me of the way his arms used to wrap around my shoulders. I needed to put his typewriter in my suitcase, needed to let my fingers die on the keys, where his own used to dance. I needed to steal his textbooks from inside his desk, with his doodles in the bleached margins and my own messages scribbled out of boredom. I needed to take his sweater and leave it folded in the drawer upstairs so I'll always have its scent to remind me. I needed his pencils and his scarf and his old script. I needed his comb and his pocket change and the poem he wrote for English class. I needed everything because what I really needed is him, and I can never have him again.  
  
_Why did I come here?  
  
Please tell me again  
  
Why did you ask me?  
  
Don't say you forget  
_  
He was my everything and nothing at all, when I stood in the snow. He was my joy and my deepest despair, my deepest wound that will never stop bleeding. He was my comfort, my courage after a lifetime of constant fear, and then he became my fear and fulfilled it. It was never enough to be afraid for myself; I had to be afraid for him too. He was the tourniquet for the wounds I came to him with. He cleansed them with his gentle words and took me under his wing, stitched them with his fingers that touched my soul in places that had been neglected for so long, wrapped me in the bandages woven from the silk he cut from his eyes. And then he held my limp and tender body in his arms, against his chest, and it seemed like those few months I had him with me was a delirium. He snatched himself away from me, and my body snapped in cold solitude. I breathed again – in abrupt awakening.  
  
_I long for, I long for  
  
I long for my home  
  
I long for a land where  
  
No man was ever known  
_  
Roses were everywhere when he lived in my soul. Does he still dwell in my heart? That's what everyone told me, talking to me like they had suddenly turned into therapists. "He loved you and he's in a better place now. It'll get better every day. It'll get better." Shut up, I wanted to scream. Shut up and leave me alone. But they looked at me with pity in their hollow eyes. Hollow with pain or indifference, I couldn't tell. They never understood. They never could understand me. Only he understood.  
  
_ Oh, Neil, baby, it's okay. It's okay, I'm here. I'm here, I'm here. I won't let you die. I won't let you bleed any more. Oh, God. Oh. Neil – Neil...._  
  
Stop the moaning. Stop the whimpering. Stop the tears and the fumbling for his hands. He's dead. He's not looking at you – he never closed his eyes. They're glazed with death, not tears. He's not pale because of the cold. He's colder than any winter ever could be. Stop crying. Stop hoping. Let him go. You came too late.  
  
_ Oh, Neil.... Neil, please, don't do this. Don't leave me, Neil...Neil.... Oh, God.... Oh, Neil...I'm sorry, Neil, I'm sorry... I didn't know, I didn't know I was late. But I'm here now.... I'm here now, baby. Why can't you wake up? Oh, God...Neil....  
_  
It won't do any good. Stop burying your guilt in his chest. Stop holding on. He's already let go. He's already given up. You weren't worth the pain. You weren't enough to keep him here. You didn't save him from himself. You didn't save him from his father. You failed.  
  
I failed. I wasn't enough, and I failed. Now the only thing left is his sweater in the drawer upstairs and the lamp that hasn't been lit in a year. I can't forget him. I can't breathe anymore, and I can't feel what I want to feel. Bleeding for him didn't help. But he didn't bleed for me – he bled for freedom. He didn't die because of me...He died because it was the only way out. Could I have saved him? It wouldn't have mattered. He would've been dead inside. He would've been taken away, and I couldn't have lived with a dead spirit dwelling in my salvation. He was so beautiful. He was always so beautiful and full of joy and life. It left him when he surrendered.... Yet he was still beautiful.  
  
_With no neurosis  
  
No psychosis  
  
No psychoanalysis  
  
And no sadness  
_  
_Live, baby. Live for me. Live the way you used to, with the fire in your eyes lighting up the room and making me feel warm inside._ I asked him to do this as his limp body lay slouched in my arms, his head hanging back in defeat, and he didn't answer me. He didn't listen. He didn't look at me again. I couldn't stop the denial, and I didn't want to. All the others disappeared as I sat on the carpet that smelled like gunpowder and cradled his motionless form. His arms flapped like hung up laundry in the breeze, and they didn't connect around my shoulders like they used to. Were tears any good? Was begging any good? I really was useless. His arms were like empty sleeves in the wind.  
  
_I'll pick up the pieces,  
  
I'll carry on somehow  
  
Tape the broken parts together  
  
And limp this love around  
_  
Would you have loved me forever? Do you still love me now, wherever you are? Are you in paradise, baby? Is your soul in paradise when my fingers in your hair? They closed your eyes. I couldn't do it myself. I wanted to leave you the way your were, the way you wanted to be. I wanted to look into those eyes forever, until I fell into your casket and they buried me alive. But I didn't, Neil. I stood in black with the rest of the boys and a carnation in my pocket, red like the blood and the love and the passion that flowed in your veins. Does it still linger? If I cut open your wrist, would it sprout up cold, like a vine snaking up your arm? It wouldn't pour out like a waterfall, the way my soul pours from my heart that you sliced open with a bullet and a twisted crown of dreams.

_Limp this love around_


End file.
